lay almost necessarily on the line of land communication
between the north-east and the south-west. The lofty Armenian
mountain-chains--Niphates and the other parallel ranges--towards the
north, and the great Arabian Desert towards the south, offered
difficulties to companies of land-traders which they were unwilling to
face, and naturally led them to select routes intermediate between these
two obstacles, which could not fail to pass through some part or other
of the Mesopotamian region.

The established lines of land trade between Assyria and her neighbors
were probably very numerous, but the most important must have been some
five or six. One almost certainly led from the Urumiyeh basin over the
_Keli-shin_ pass (lat. 37 deg., long. (45 deg. nearly)), descending on Rowandiz,
and thence following the course of the Greater Zab to Herir, whence it
crossed the plain to Nineveh. At the summit of the Kell-shin pass is a
pillar of dark blue stone, six feet in height, two in breadth, and one
in depth, let into a basement block of the same material, and covered
with a cuneiform inscription in the Scythic character. At a short
distance to the westward on the same route is another similar pillar.
The date of the inscriptions falls within the most flourishing time of
the Assyrian empire, and their erection is a strong argument in favor of
the use of this route (which is one of the very few possible modes of
crossing the Zagros range) in the time when that empire was in full
vigor.

Another line of land traffic probably passed over the same
mountain-range considerably further to the south. It united Assyria with
Media, leading from the Northern Ecbatana (Takht-i-Suleiman) by the
Banneh pass to Suleimaniyeh, and thence by Kerkuk and Altura-Kiupri to
Arbela and Nineveh.

There may have been also a route up the valley of the Lesser Zab, by
Koi-Sinjah and over the great Kandil range into Lajihan. There are said
to be Assyrian remains near Koi-Sinjah, at a place called the Bihisht
and Jehennen ("the Heaven and Hell") of Nimrud, but no account has been
given of them by any European traveller.

Westward there were probably two chief lines of trade with Syria and the
adjacent countries. One passed along the foot of the Sinjar range by
Sidikan (_Arban_) on the Khabour to Tiphsach (or Thapsacus) on the
Euphrates, where it crossed the Great River. Thence it bent southwards,
and, passing through Tadmor, was directed upon Phoenicia most